Gasp!

A young man jolted awake again in an old, run-down house—white hair, crimson eyes, and a thin, frail body.

"Wh-what the hell just happened?!" Ravian said, leaping up from his bed in genuine fear for the first time.

He looked around and saw the same house he had woken in when he first came to this world: the same worn-out bed, the same piece of bread on the table before him, the same cup of water.

"Did I die?! How the hell?!" Unable to believe it, Ravian clutched his head.

"No—how did I die? Did that crazy red-haired girl come for revenge? That’s the only explanation," he said, his eyes fixed on the door, knowing the gang would arrive again at any moment if he had truly returned to the start of the day.

"System," Ravian called.

[Yes, Host?]

"Did I really die?" he asked, clinging to the last shred of hope he had.

[Yes, Host. You died in your sleep, and you now have only one extra life remaining.]

"Damn it!" Ravian finally accepted the truth.

"How did I die, System? Did Lysandra kill me, or was it someone else?"

[I do not know, Host. I have no senses of my own, and all my information concerns the System and what it provides. Everything beyond that depends entirely on you,] the System replied through a window.

"Ugh. This has to be the first time anyone’s died on the very first day after transmigrating. Aren’t I supposed to be the main character or something?" Ravian said, kicking the rickety bed in disbelief.

"I think I needed this death to wake me out of the illusion. Now I’ve got only one chance left, and I still don’t know when I’ll be able to earn another," he said, walking to the window of his room—where he found a great moon hanging in the sky, glowing with a strange brightness he hadn’t noticed before.

"Wow. That really is a rare sight. From how bright it is and the angle it sits at, midnight has clearly only just arrived—which means I’ve returned to the exact start of the day. A little earlier than the last time I got here," Ravian said as he thought back over everything that had happened before he died and was thrown back in time.

"That means I have about two hours before the Black Crow Gang shows up," he concluded after some simple calculation.

Then he fell silent for a moment and lifted his eyes to the moon again. This time, he didn’t want to make any mistakes.

’All right. First, I need to make sure the rest of the gang doesn’t come back to meet Emy again. I can’t guarantee my conversation with Max will play out the same way. Last time, I barely broke out of that frozen state—if I’d been one second slower, my head would have come right off,’ Ravian thought, looking around the room in search of a solution.

Then an idea struck him.

’Hmm. This might work. I just need to get the timing right,’ he thought. He studied the wall for a few seconds—then charged at it full speed.

Bang!

A dull thud rang out as his head slammed into the wall.

Drip.

Drip.

Blood began to trickle from a gash on his forehead, while a bruise spread across the entire right side of it.

"Ugh! That hurts!" Ravian groaned, pressing a hand to his forehead.

Now he had an excuse—for today, at least—and the rest would be easy.

He turned and took the cup of water from the table, tore a strip of cloth from the sleeve of his linen shirt—leaving it with a single sleeve, the other no longer attached—and poured a little water onto the cloth. Once it was damp enough, he raised it and began wrapping it around his head, only for the pain to flare again the instant it touched the bruise.

"Ugh! I just hope this works in the end," Ravian said, pressing the cloth to the bruise and binding it tightly to stop the bleeding. Before long, part of the cloth had turned red with his blood.

After a few moments, he finished wrapping his head, then lay back down on the bed, calm despite the pain still throbbing in his skull.

He stared up at the ceiling, turning over the plan that had taken shape in his mind.

"Hurry up and get here, my dear friends," Ravian said before closing his eyes.

Some time passed. Then, all at once, his eyes opened.

Rustle. Rustle.

The sound of approaching footsteps.

’So you finally arrived,’ Ravian said inwardly, a calm smile crossing his face.

Then—

Boom!

The wooden door blew off its frame again, dust billowing everywhere. But this time, Ravian didn’t bolt upright as before. He simply sat where he was, pulling shock and fear across his face.

Once again, three men and one woman appeared before him.

Thomas, Lucas, Max, and Emy.

"Hoho, look at this boy—sleeping here as if he’s forgotten that today’s the payment date we already agreed on," Max said, catching sight of Ravian’s shape through the dust still drifting from the shattered door. But once the dust cleared and Ravian’s features came into focus—

Exhausted, thin, injured, a bloody bruise on his head wrapped in a strip of cloth, lying on the bed with worry and fear written all over his face—

Max frowned at the sight.

"What happened to you, boy? And did you get our money ready?" he asked, his expression staying dark.

Ravian looked at him, the pitiful look never once leaving his face, all while he kept stealing glances in a certain direction.

"Sir Max, I-I’m sorry. I really did have the money, but this morning some thieves jumped me in the alley, beat me badly, and stole it," Ravian said, his eyes beginning to well up.

Max’s eyes widened slightly.

"You’re telling me someone tried to rob you? In our territory?" he asked in a low, simmering voice.

"Yes, Sir Max. That’s what happened," Ravian said, nodding—then throwing another glance in a different direction, toward where the room’s only woman stood. Toward Emy.

Emy stood there frowning as well, but her frown was tangled up with something else. Something like... excitement?

Her face was faintly flushed as she took in Ravian’s injured, pitiful state. She was as unhinged as he was, but her madness was of an entirely different kind.

A chill ran through Ravian. Beautiful as Emy was—even by Earth’s standards—he had never tolerated being in a weak position in front of a woman, whether before coming to this world or after. He was, quite simply, the very definition of a proud man.

And now that proud man was being watched by a sadistic woman with a gaze that could be mistaken for nothing but excitement.

’Now I want to kill you even more than before, Emy,’ Ravian murmured inwardly as he plainly saw her relishing his pain.

Soon her patience ran out, and she stepped forward—faster this time than before.

"Leader Max, I think you should hurry back to headquarters. There’s an urgent meeting for some reason. Leave Ravian to me—I’ll squeeze every detail about these thieves out of him. And he clearly looks worn out, so we should give him time to recover before he pays what he owes. Don’t you agree?" Emy said, her body still betraying signs of excitement.

Max glanced at her and the other two, and they nodded.

Their leader had mentioned there was an important meeting about a dangerous person who had entered their area that morning; they needed to discuss how to keep clear of the intruder, since by all descriptions he was someone they couldn’t hope to beat at their current strength.

"All right, Emy. We’ll head off—but make sure you learn everything about the ones who attacked him and took our money. We need to pull these weeds out fast, before they cause more trouble. Or worse, before they start thinking we’ll just put up with it," Max said, then turned to leave, Lucas and Thomas trailing after him.

But Emy didn’t hear a word of it.

She was already at Ravian’s side, the same look on her face, and the moment she saw Max and the others gone, she leaned in and pulled Ravian into an embrace with a strange expression, squeezing his body so hard that a soft groan slipped out of him.

’Now!’ Ravian thought quickly, and used Absolute Focus. In roughly two seconds...

’Done.’ A triumphant smile touched his lips, while Emy went on hugging him in the way she apparently believed would put him at ease—for now, at least.

The instant she drew back to look at his face, before she could do anything more, she found Ravian’s eyes locked onto a certain part of her body—or rather, onto the thing fastened to it. When she followed his gaze downward, she realized he was staring at the pouch at her waist.

"What is it?" Emy asked, plainly irritated that his attention had wandered elsewhere.

"That isn’t your usual pouch, is it, Miss Emy?" Ravian said, wearing the same innocent expression—which looked all the more pitiful with the cloth wound around his head.

Emy looked again, and her eyes went wide.

"Ah—right. I almost forgot," she said, smacking her own forehead, then quickly spun toward Max and the others.

"Leader Max!" she called, rushing off after them to return the pouch they’d left in her keeping.

’Good grief, that would’ve been a real problem if Max had come back after we’d started,’ Emy thought as she hurried along, and soon caught up with them.

Meanwhile, inside the broken-down house, a white-haired young man sat turning a stone over in his hand.

"Tsk. Absolute Focus still works—and it really is useful, even after transmigration," Ravian said, rolling the beautiful stone between his fingers. Soon a familiar sound reached him as a white window, veined with red and shot through with dark shadows, appeared before him.

[Ding!]

[One of the Awakening conditions has been detected near the Host.]

[Second Condition: Mana Stone or Soul Stone of any grade — fulfilled!]

[Does the Host wish to absorb it?]

[Note: Please fulfill the second condition in an isolated location, to protect the Host during the Awakening process from outside interference that could disrupt it.]

"No, not this time. Hold on a little, System," Ravian said, his gaze fixed on the door—or rather, on the spot where the door had been.

"There’s still one more problem to deal with before I begin," he said, already catching the faint, eager footsteps that unmistakably belonged to a woman drawing near the doorway.

In the next moment, she appeared before him.

Emy looked as though she’d just shed everything that had been bothering her and had come to indulge her favorite pastime.

Poor thing.

She had walked to the altar on her own two feet.